


Hidden in the Thicket

by SharpAttack



Series: Caustic dump [2]
Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Caustic's childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 22:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20298694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpAttack/pseuds/SharpAttack
Summary: The visage of the old manor still stood. Stone was hard to destroy, instead of the lovely pink shade of the native rock that built it, it was black. Still covered in a thick layer grime from the fire. The old stain glass windows broken and blown, all but one. By some miracle of sorts the one above the burnt and rotten double doors stood the stain glass of a single red rose wrapped around a pen, with a broken sword under it.Alexander remembers, before his father was too busy for them. Holding him as the house was being built. Dressed in a pressed suit of blue, a grin on his bearded face. “Why do you think the pen won the rose?”





	Hidden in the Thicket

Age has slowly been claiming him a fool. A sentimental fool. He stands in the burnt remains of his old home. Gorgeous in away with it’s destruction. A storm was coming and he felt it in his blood. Art supplies packed into a hard case. The gravel crunches under his boots as he pushes open the old gate. A loud piercing noise of metal on metal fills the over grown front yard. The rose bushes his mother was famed for tending gone rogue. Their pink and yellow flowers large and their branches like barbed wire stretch vastly from their old prim and proper stone beds. The old fountain was crumbled and he hears deep croaks from frogs within it.   
  
The visage of the old manor still stood. Stone was hard to destroy, instead of the lovely pink shade of the native rock that built it, it was black. Still covered in a thick layer grime from the fire. The old stain glass windows broken and blown, all but one. By some miracle of sorts the one above the burnt and rotten double doors stood the stain glass of a single red rose wrapped around a pen, with a broken sword under it.   
  
Alexander remembers, before his father was too busy for them. Holding him as the house was being built. Dressed in a pressed suit of blue, a grin on his bearded face.  _ “Why do you think the pen won the rose?” _ __   
__   
_ His father always spoke in questions to him. Wanting his unbias opinion on things in his childish form. He was young, about seven. His answer makes him frown. _ __   
__   
_ “Because the pen is mightier then the sword!” Young Alexander had squealed in delight, a hand fisting into his father’s salt and pepper beard. The delighted grin on his Dad’s face had made him feel full of happiness. _ __   
__   
_ “That’s right lad!” He had said. “Do you know why that is?” _ __   
__   
_ “Erm…” _ __   
__   
_ “Because intelligence beats brute force. To wield a weapon or a pen, one needs wisdom, wit and intelligence.” He explain, walking towards the finished fountain. The design was of an old earth design. A tower with a book title on every stone in the tower. _ __   
__   
_ “Isn’t all of that the same thing?” He had asked curiously, hungry for knowledge even at seven. _ __   
__   
_ “No Alexander. Wisdom is experience and knowing things. Like you know not to cross the street if cars are on it.” His father simplified his answers. “Then Wit is being sharp, like when a cat is searching for its pray. Eyes and ears alert. A patience, a keen inventive style of thought. Waiting to pounce.” He sits Alexander down on the fountain edge with a grin. “Now Intelligence, is gathering information and then using that information to provoke a better outcome. Like, say you didn’t have enough supplies to get to a destination that you had to go to. You;d want to gather information on local fauna and flora. Animals and plants. What to avoid and what you could have. Those three things are what you need to wield a sword. Or…” His Father took a rose wood book with Golden lettering. ‘A.M.N’ Allen Magnus Nox. He opens it to dark purple velvet inside with a golden pen inside it. “This pen has been in our family for 20 generations. Every Nox has held it. Writers, composers, scientists of all kinds. It’s also why your name is Alexander Maanas Nox. A.M.N” He had explained in that kind tone. _ __   
__   
A thunder clap in the distance snaps him out of the memory as he grunts. Walking into the manor,having to kick the door in. Luckily, most of the building was built with stone, so once it did start raining he would have shelter.   
  
The two grand staircases survived as well as the fine marble banisters. Broken carvings of old myths upon them. All blackened by time and the fire. Gothic is what he would describe what it looked like.   
  
_ Dracula’s castle. _ Alexander moves through the burnt home, wood and walls between rooms collapsed, he had to go around about way to the back garden. Standing in the shattered conservatory. Glass crunching under his boots. Dead exotic plants lay dead in their pots. Local flora creeping in by the strong storm winds that blow through the planet.   
  
He smells it in the air, electrifiing. Alexander creeps through the tall wheat like grass, finding and crossing a stone bridge over a muck filled old pool. Frogs croaking and peaking through the slimed top.   
  
The old stone wall was covered in ivy, luckily the non poison kind. It takes him much longer then it did in his youth to climb over after throwing his bag to the otherside. He tumbles off the other side crashing to the grassy ground with a curse.  _ A howl of wind, the sound of windchimes ring. _ __   
__   
_ “Alexander Maanas Nox! Don’t go climbing those walls, you could crack your skull open!” His Mother’s stern voice shouted from an open window of the library. Long black hair braided, only just graying at the front of her hair line. A stern frown on her face. _ __   
__   
“Sorry Mama.” He says in a puff of breath as he struggles to his feet, grabbing his bag on the way up to standing. From the top of the hill he could see the storm approaching, a solid wall of electric power in the dark clouds, casting a shadow on the fresh water ocean.   
  
He remembers running through the fields, eager to witness the next storm. Today he walks, eager to relive his most soothing memory.   
  
He crashes to his knees ones he reaches the thick it, pushes branches aside as he crawls. He feels like a grubby child again, nothing could hurt him even as the thicket scratches at his cheeks.   
  
He shoves the sticks out of his way once he meets the edge of the land, a sandy mud slope that meets more mode at the bottom of it. Holes all along the mud surface. Blood warms wiggle and crabs scuddle along the soft and he knows warm mud. Alexander opens the bag in front of him,pulling out a hard covered art book and a rose wood box. Closing the suitcase to put the book on top of it, Wiggling his much larger body to find a comfortable position. Hidden in the thicket, just like when he was young.  
  
He’s an old fool now, craving his youth. The storm approaches and he feels small and a serene calm comes over him as thunder claps, a strike of lightning coming down on the restless water.  


**Author's Note:**

> A companion piece to Artistically Calm!


End file.
